I report on how consciousness and community are transcending god and state, locally in Washington, DC, and globally, where ever I see progress - or backsliding, including on the feminist front! "Imagine there's no countries, and no religion, too."

Saturday, May 16, 2009

Will Obama Follow JINSA's Lead on Iran, media?

The notorious pro-Israel think tank Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) which helped bring about the Iraq war and promotes war on Iran has published an article by a retired US army officer named Ralph Peters called Wishful Thinking and Indecisive Wars which calls on the US government to be willing to act as badly as the "enemy" (Islamic extremism) about whom he states: "The greatest advantage our opponents enjoy is an uncompromising strength of will, their readiness to “pay any price and bear any burden” to hurt and humble us."

He first recommends we fight them by instituting a military draft, by ending our namby pamby attitudes about massive daily troop losses and by expunging the "war is not the answer" philosophy and other Gandhian nonsense.

He reminds us we have the power to win any war, that the ruling class must regain its Judeo-Christian religious fervor, that we must worry about China's growing military - never forgetting that religion-driven Islamists are still the worst enemy. Ominously he writes: "The greatest advantage our opponents enjoy is an uncompromising strength of will, their readiness to 'pay any price and bear any burden' to hurt and humble us." (And of course and Israeli attack on Iran would turn into just such a war.)

He then takes on the "Killers without guns," the "hostile third party in the fight": the media. He charges "video cameras and biased reporting guaranteed that Hezbollah would survive the 2006 war with Israel and, as of this writing, they appear to have saved Hamas from destruction in Gaza."

Mr. Peters has a solution for the US military which JINSA probably heartily endorses:

"Although it seems unthinkable now, future wars may require censorship, news blackouts and, ultimately, military attacks on the partisan media. Perceiving themselves as superior beings, journalists have positioned themselves as protected-species combatants. But freedom of the press stops when its abuse kills our soldiers and strengthens our enemies. Such a view arouses disdain today, but a media establishment that has forgotten any sense of sober patriotism may find that it has become tomorrow’s conventional wisdom."

Where JINSA leads, will Barack Obama follow?? His infuriating recent reversals on torture photos and Military Commissions at Guantanamo must make one wonder.This Latuff cartoon is mild compared to what Peters and JINSA recommend.